DS Reviews

Tintin is a Belgian boy who somehow manages to be a journalist without ever writing a word, who knocks out grown men twice his size with a single fling of his fist, and who lives in a world where the only woman is a jolly opera singer who exists only to make us laugh. In short, his life plays out like a little boy's dream – or at least the type of boy who juggles ambitions of winning the science fair with fantasies of clobbering the local bully. The good news is that it's not a disagreeable dream, and while it suffers from excessively easy gameplay and forced variety, The Adventures of Tintin is a bit more rewarding than its movie franchise origins might suggest...

If you have played any of the other LEGO games you already know what to expect with LEGO Harry Potter: Years 5-7. Set in the LEGOfied wizarding world, the newest iteration never delivers on moving the series beyond what has already been done, but it does provide solid gameplay, plenty of fan service, and the charm the LEGO games have become known for...

It took nearly fourteen hours to finish the first season of Harvest Moon: The Tale of Two Towns. In that time, the village saw fit to slowly dole out necessary equipment that has, in the past, been included with your farm. In fact, it wasn't until the first day of summer, fourteen-frickin-real-world hours later, that the damn mayor gave us a fishing pole. So how did we spend those first, grueling fourteen hours? Collecting butterflies, mostly...

Despite the finality implied by its title, Professor Layton and the Last Specter is actually a prequel that tells the story of how Layton and his sidekick Luke first met. It follows the exact same formula of the last three Layton games, where a variety of brain teasers and puzzles are scattered throughout a point-and-click adventure story. In the case of Professor Layton though, saying The Last Specter is "more of the same" could actually be taken as a compliment...

For some of us, mapping our way through lonely 2D corridors and slowly accumulating the firepower to put a hole in the moon is the cream cheese to our bagel. It’s a decades-old obsession begun by Metroid and later championed by Castlevania; lately jettisoned to handheld consoles like the GameBoy Advance and Nintendo DS. Without getting too deep into it...

Let's start with the elephant in the room - May's Mystery: Forbidden Memories looks like a shameless Professor Layton knockoff. The art style, the protagonist with button eyes, the interface, the overhead map, and of course the puzzle-driven mystery adventure - it's hard to get around. If someone tells a development team "Make a game that's exactly like that other popular game but retails for $10 less," they would produce something that looks almost exactly like May's Mystery. Perhaps this is a coincidence! We'll never know...

Solatorobo: Red the Hunter resurrects your childhood soul. It'll take you back to the days when you believed animals could talk and Transformers were all the rage. Solatorobo plops you right in front of the Saturday morning cartoons in your memory and brings back your childhood smile. It does it with its straightforward gameplay, charismatic characters, and above all, letting you control your own personal mech, where you'll throw enemies around like they're your playthings. Always fun and lighthearted, XSEED has localized a spirited game with enough spunk to make even the most jaded gamer crack a grin...

Kirby’s power involves inhaling an enemy to gain its abilities. Sucking up a fire enemy may turn the pink puffball into a torch, whereas devouring a boomerang-wielding foe can grant Kirby that weapon for his own use. In his last game, Kirby’s Epic Yarn, he didn’t have these abilities – he instead utilized a skill-set more similar to Yoshi’s, with a leash (tongue) that could grab his enemies and turn them into ball (egg) projectiles. It’s almost as if Kirby sucked up Yoshi before the game began, gaining his powers in the process. In Kirby Mass Attack for the Nintendo DS, he, again, lacks his typical powers. Apparently, this time, he sucked up a whole bunch of Pikmin...

If there was ever a monster outside of Pikachu that you just wanted to take home as your new pet, it'd be Dragon Quest’s lovable slime. How could you ever want to hurt that precious smiley face on that little blue drip? And while Dragon Quest Monsters: Joker 2 will break your heart because you’ll have to do just that, you’ll also recruit these monsters in your attempt to the become a Pokémon Mas...

No two ways about it, Transformers: Dark of the Moon for DS is a dud. Michael Bay’s movies are loud, raucous, and filled with more explosions than a melodramatic volcano, but at least they’re never boring. Dark of the Moon DS seems content to task Transformers with leisurely strolls. In this tedious game the Transformers (either Autobots or Decepticons, depending on which version you play) are always either lumbering to the next combat area or fighting drones of polygonal shapes...